The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or for the Government of the United States of America for governmental purposes without the payment of any royalties thereon or therefor.
This invention relates to an underwater display for divers. More particularly, this invention is to an enhanced display on a swim-board for divers operating under ambient conditions of zero visibility.
Military (and civilian) divers use wrist-mounted compasses, depth gauges, and timers separately or the same devices mounted together on an underwater swim board to conduct underwater navigation (magnetic compass-dead reckoning) training, and missions. These swim boards (or, combat swim boards for military applications) are preferred to using the navigational devices individually since they are lightweight, fairly low in cost, and the board can easily be held in front of the diver conducting the underwater swim exercise or mission. In other words, the diver can swim a specific magnetic heading underwater by viewing the board-mounted compass, and also monitor depth and swim times by viewing board-mounted timers and depth gauges. Auxiliary lighting is sometimes employed to enhance use at night. This auxiliary lighting could be chem-lights, light sticks, and/or those products marketed under the trademark CYALUME licensed by Omniglow Corporation, 96 Windsor Street, W. Springfield Mass. from Cytec Technology Corp.)
However, most military dive missions using swim board apparatuses are conducted under conditions of extremely poor visibility. In zero visibility conditions the diver has extreme difficulty reading the compass, or depth gauge and timers, so the diver""s ability to navigate, monitor depth, and time is compromised. This limitation can effectively end the dive mission.
Thus, in accordance with this inventive concept, a need has been recognized in the state of the art for an enhanced underwater display of compass, depth, and time to permit continuation of missions under conditions of zero visibility.
An object of the invention is to provide a new capability for navigating underwater in conditions of zero visibility.
Another object of the invention is to provide an enhanced display of navigational instruments including magnetic compass, depth gauge, and timer to enable underwater navigation regardless of water visibility.
Another object of the invention is to provide an enhanced underwater display requiring minimal training for a diver to navigate, monitor depth, and time under conditions of zero visibility.
Another object of the invention is to provide an enhanced display using current standard underwater swim board format and configuration to assure successful underwater navigation regardless of visibility.
Another object of the invention is to provide a diver""s swim board having an enhanced display module to enable underwater navigation regardless of visibility in the water.
These and other objects of the invention will become more readily apparent from the ensuing specification when taken in conjunction with the appended claims.
Accordingly, the present invention provides an enhanced display for underwater navigation. A housing provides protection from ambient water, and depth, timer, and heading modules adjacent the housing provide signals representative of depth, heading, and time. A microprocessor in the housing receives the representative signals to create control signals that are coupled to an LCD to display the information of the representative signals through a screen window. A virtual image display lens system is mounted in the housing to coextend adjacent on the screen window of the LCD to present the displayed information as a magnified apparent screen image to allow binocular viewing thereof.